New spin on Old Trafford pitch

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Australia has been warned that the pitch at Old Trafford is not
the raging turner that might have been hoped for, with officials at
the ground expecting the wicket to suit seamers more than
spinners.

Leg spinner Stuart MacGill said England was entitled to ask for
conditions that suited its own pace attack and, in any case, might
play into Australian hands if the curator prepared a pace-friendly
pitch. "It may well actually work in our favour if they did that
because a bit of extra pace in the deck wouldn't hurt me much," he
said.

However, MacGill's chances of partnering Shane Warne at Old
Trafford may be damaged by the intelligence being gathered from
county team Lancashire, which is based there. "At the moment the
pitch is like concrete There is plenty of pace and bounce
and at this stage I would expect it to favour the seamers rather
than the spinners," Lancashire chief executive Jim Cumbes said.

"Traditionally it has favoured spin but it has been prepared
slightly differently this time because of the weather. There should
be some turn from the fourth day on but I don't think it will be
turning sideways early in the match."

The Old Trafford pitch's characteristics have changed over the
years and Steve Harmison has been the most successful county bowler
on it this season. Only 36.6 per cent of the wickets to have fallen
there have been taken by spinners, even with Muttiah Muralitharan
in the Lancashire team. Pakistani leg spinner Danish Kaneria went
for 0-208 in 70 overs there in a recent county match.

The head curator of the Melbourne Cricket Club said the third
Test could go "pear shaped" if the groundsmen were influenced to
prepare a seamer's wicket to negate the effect of Warne's leg
spin.

Melbourne's Tony Ware, who has long prepared the pitches for the
Boxing Day Test at the MCG, said the Old Trafford pitch had a
history of breaking up and favouring spin, and the curator would be
forced to add water and retain a greater covering of grass to
prevent that occurring this week.

"It's a tricky exercise," Ware told radio SEN yesterday. "I
think their only option, if they want to not have a spinning
wicket, they have to have almost a damp wicket on day one or day
two, which only means that the Test match becomes determined by the
toss of the coin, which nobody wants to see.

"If the curator is under a bit of direction to put water on the
wicket so close to a game under English conditions, I think they
need to be a little careful with that. That could go reasonably
pear shaped."

Ware warned that if English administrators instructed a curator
to produce a particular kind of pitch, it would take the game back
two to three decades. He said such a practice had never happened in
Australia but was certain it had been common overseas.